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BBC Creative Collisions – Future of Media Technology #CC2012NI

Matt Johnston — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:16:31 +0000

Friday 8th June 2012
10am to 2pm includes lunch and refreshments
BBC Blackstaff Studio 62-66 Great Victoria Street – Belfast – BT2 7BB

Creative Collisions 2012 is an opportunity for you to engage in the cutting edge of media technology and innovation. Whether you want to harness technology for practical media solutions, diversify your innovative ambitions or simply enhance your knowledge, Creative Collisions 2012 is the place to be.

BE INSPIRED

BBC’s Stephen Nolan will host a ‘Live’ studio debate exploring the future of media
technology – Suggest hot debate topics NOW using Twitter #CC2012NI

Key Speakers:

Peter Johnston (Director) BBC Northern Ireland
Mervyn Middleby (Head of Technology Operations) BBC Northern Ireland
Alistair Hamilton (CEO) Invest NI

SHAPE THE FUTURE

An exciting opportunity to develop the broadcast technologies of the future with support from Invest NI, DCAL and BBC Northern Ireland – details revealed on the day!

Demonstrations from a top team of experts, including:

HD Solutions
Next Generation toolsets
Virtual Studios
iPads on the Road
Graphics innovation and many more…
Network with fellow media professionals

MANDATORY RSVP Nicola.Hollis@bbc.co.uk by Wednesday 30th May 2012

Spaces are limited – please confirm your attendance as soon as possible to reserve a place. We operate a ‘first come first served’ policy.

Cultural Apps

Matt Johnston — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:20:50 +0000

Last night, the launch of the Cultural Apps competition was held in the MAC in Belfast and was attended by all the great and the good. Here are some images from that.

My Tour Talk, Ian Graham from Momentum , Rory Campbell from FordeCampbell (Digital Circle Steering Group member) and BT48.com sharing a moment.

GAA, Comhaltas, Momentum and the Ulster Historical Foundation.

Momentum and DCAL with BT48 and My Tour Talk

Your definition of broadband is wrong.

Matt Johnston — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:18:15 +0000

A few months ago I had the pleasure of attending a Deloitte paper launch and the guest speaker was Peter Cochrane. I’d not heard of Peter before but he eloquently (and authoritatively) put forward an argument that I have tried to explain to stakeholders across the province. While it’s hard to get the full effect of his persuasive speech, you can view his FTTH @ Last slides at the link above.

His core argument was:

Your definition of broadband is wrong.

During the talk, he said that if an internet link is not 100 Mbps up and down then it’s not broadband. Many people scoff but they fail to realise several things about the demand for broadband. The demand is there, it’s entirely in the supply that we see the issue.

In 2003, it was exciting to download a 3 Megabyte music file from the newly opened iTunes Store. My broadband was 512 Kbps down, 256Kbps up and it had a reported 20:1 contention. In 2013, my bandwidth demands have increased a thousandfold. I want to download 3.2 Gigabyte movie files from the iTunes Store. But my broadband speeds have increased only by a factor of 10 in a decade. I’m imminently to order BT Infinity but that only can provide 24-80 Mbps (“SuperFast broadband”) and not the 80 Mbps+ (“UltraFast broadband”) that the modern media consumer demands. And that’s just the download speed because idiots have, over the last few years, decreed that download speed is the only important metric.

There are four metrics I measure broadband by:

Upload
Download
Latency
Contention

Upload speeds are just as important (and more important for the media industry) and they tend to still be sub-10 Mbps. Contention on BT Infinity is 50:1 – the opposite of contention is a term called “non-blocking” where everyone paying for access gets the access they are paying for. When Telcos promise a certain bandwidth, they’re actually selling that same object fifty times to their customers and you’re all supposed to share. (The logic being that not everyone will be downloading at the same time). Latency is, for most people in our industry, immaterial though you can feel the effect in online games, video-conferencing calls and other time-senstiive operations. In many cases, the latency is not caused at the “broadband” end but due to the series of interactions between you and your content across the Internet. The delicious irony being that if your upload speed is limited, your latency jumps considerably as your “content requests” are competing with your uploads.

One of Peter’s slides regarding the island of Jersey:

(He goes on to clarify that 3G runs at 14 Mbits, WiFi at 50 Mbps.)

Sweden:

100Mbit for 299kr (£25) a month is the slowest broadband in Sweden. And it goes up to a Gig for £75 a month

Keep this in mind when talking about our “digital platform”. Our broadband needs to improve by a factor of 100 for our consumer markets and for our business markets, probably 100 times that.

Dead Hungry Diner released today!

Matt Johnston — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:23:17 +0000

Dead Hungry Diner was released today.

It’s only £5.99! Buy!

The CAL Committee Inquiry into the Creative Industries

Matt Johnston — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 20:22:12 +0000

Last month I had the pleasure of visiting the CAL (Culture, Arts and Leisure) committee. This is an oversight committee which, as far as I can tell, exists to make sure that the department (DCAL) is doing what it is meant to be doing.

Our report was originally submitted as a response to the CAL Committee Inquiry into the Creative Industries. (600K, PDF)

While I think that DCAL is doing everything it can do serve the varied and fragmented responsibility that falls under its satrapy, our session of giving evidence concentrated on more pressing issues. You can read the transcripts of all of the session at the NIAssembly Web Site here (and our specific transcript here)

Some selections:

Is the curriculum in post-primary schools aligned to the type of developments that have taken place in the industry and market?
Absolutely not.
We cannot express how bad the situation is. We may take some responsibility in that it happened on our watch, but the information and communication technology (ICT) qualification is utterly unsuitable for a digital economy. Essentially, we have given people GCSEs and A levels in the 21st century equivalent of typing.
…
People in the industry do not understand the maximum student number (MaSN) cap, and I do not understand it. We are artificially restricting the number of people that we need for the industry.

Read more. It’s incredibly relevant to our industry, as are the other transcripts on that page.

Job Titles Are For Wimps

Matt Johnston — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:25:23 +0000

I do a little bit of public speaking and I’m always asked for my job title and a short bio.

The bio is usually something funny that I’ve cribbed together in the minutes before they give up on me.

The job title I struggle with. My official title is “Network Facilitator” which is such a mealy-mouthed non-description that it leaves me cold.

So, as of today, bios are no more. And my job title officially changes to:

Innovation Czar for Northern Ireland

It’s what I do.

The objective has to be learning, not just getting the technology out there

Matt Johnston — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 09:29:24 +0000

A school in Maine deployed iPads:

“classes using iPads … outperformed the ones without them in every literacy metric used.”

“The objective has to be learning, not just getting the technology out there”

“We are paying attention to app selection and focused on continuous improvement — we aren’t just handing equipment to teachers.”

“many educational institutions have not put in enough effort.”

It has never been about the “new and shiny” though detractors of 1:1 computing programmes have always used this as a defence against the investment in learning. This isn’t about putting Angry Birds into the hands of students or distracting them from their studies with FaceBook but rather adopting a permissive approach to technology. When you permit students to use technology in learning, they use technology in learning. Obviously. There’s no need to compete with FaceBook or BBM for attention if the materials and delivery are engaging.

Note that none of the quotes put the responsibility on teachers. But in the end it is the teachers who have to be engaged with the process before the students can be engaged. We’ve been thinking how the Department of Education in Northern Ireland (DENI) and the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) can help in this without just funding cheap iPads (which is not the desired end result). And it obviously has to be in the development of the curriculum and assessment of students.

In the interests of being pro-active, Momentum and Digital Circle are supporting the next TeachMEET in Belfast (because ICT pervades every teaching subject), have published a position paper on 1:1 computing (and the need to accelerate development of resources) and support the removal of ICT in its current for at GCSE and A-level (as it has become the 21st Century equivalent of Typing Class). We are also in the process of creating a new collaborative network for educational content and technology where we hope to bring together local industry, sectoral bodies, academic research and primary/post-primary education to attempt to resolve the big issues we see before us. From what we can see, we’ve inherited decades of legacy and centuries of process, something has to change.

Of course I’m interested, I’m a parent.

The Sky Is Rising

Matt Johnston — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:55:26 +0000

A report on the boom in the media industry despite the worst recession in 70 years.

One Vision for the North of Ireland

Matt Johnston — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:58:55 +0000

Northern Ireland constantly wrestles with identity. Whether that identity is national, political, sectarian or age-related, our people display their wares openly. This is why we see kerbstones painted, murals dedicated and flags flying; the insecurity around identity causes peacock-like behaviour. Only by building our bowers can we be sure to stamp our individual and community identity on the world. This is why the kerb painting happens at interface areas; places where the insecure feel most need to assert themselves. It’s the show of silent strength, a warning and a sign of virility.

My work involves the whole of Northern Ireland. I live in Bangor. Most of my work is around Belfast. A lesser amount around Derry. And even smaller amounts around the rest of Northern Ireland. And most of that is simply due to the population distribution and the critical mass needed to establish a viable business in this sector. But my work is in Northern Ireland. It bothers me to see small regions within this small province to so fiercely state their parochial identity that it causes the message to be lost. I had to advise a company to not describe themselves as “Ulster-based” because no-one, outside of the few people who care about such things, would even know where Ulster was. And none of them were the target audience. Similary, I spoke to NI Screen late in 2011 about making sure that their press releases regarding some film shoots refer to Northern Ireland because I saw some referring to Belfast when I know the shoots took place all over our wee province. An outsider won’t realise that the great company she saw from “Ulster” is even in the same town as the one which proudly describes itself as from “Derry” and they can’t be merely 70 miles from the third which is “Belfast-based”. We need to think carefully about the messages we send out and work on masking our insecurities.

I would ask that we not refer to Belfast, or Derry, or Newry or Cullybackey in our press releases. Have solidarity with your countryfolk. Respect them for where they come from, be it “Legenderry” or “Limavegas” and support them in their endeavours and remember that the whole of Northern Ireland is a tiny place. We’re never more than an hour from the sea. Never more than 30 minutes from a large body of water. We are alone on this small rock, an outpost of the United Kingdom (whether you like that or not, it won’t change it). Unlike the rest of the UK, we have a land border with a foreign country using a different currency with more lenient tax laws. We are very much isolated and we only have ourselves to rely on.

And because we are the underdog, we need to work harder at this. To work and establish that Belfast and Derry mean more than “The Troubles”. To make the province famous for more than sinkable ships and drunken footballers. And time travelling but ultimately failed cars.

When a story broke about a scam involving a local self-proclaimed venture capitalist, it crossed the world in hours but when we have good stories about Northern Ireland, we can barely get the time of day from the media. We have to change that too. It’s more than just releasing press releases, we need to start working on the message and preparing Northern Ireland for the market.

This isn’t really about the foreign companies which have invested in Northern Ireland; Nortel, Citi, Northgate, Allstate, Oracle to mention just a few. This is about the rise in indigenous talent, companies wholly owned by Northern Irish entrepreneurs. Companies like AirPOS, Planzai, Rumble Labs, Ecliptic Labs, Outsider Games, Troll Inc, Black Market Games, The Creativity Hub, The Design Zoo, Black North, Sixteen South, Waddellmedia, FRONT, Frank, Paperjam Design, Learning Pool, Kainos, RepKnight, Astute Labs, Conquest Dynamics, Purple Guerrilla and hundreds of others I can’t even fit in here. They’re the next source of wealth out there – and if you don’t believe me, look at STC (which was bought by Nortel), CEM (which eventually became the NI branch of Northgate), Meridio (sold to Autonomy), Wombat (which was bought by NYSE Euronext), ATG (bought by Oracle), Singularity (recently bought by Kofax), Lagan (recently purchased by Kana) and the most recent, World Desk (bought earlier this week by Desk Stream).

So, for the future, I don’t want to hear about Belfast or Derry or Newry or Cullybackey. I just want to hear about Northern Ireland. We need to make plans for the “Big Hub”, realising that every part of Northern Ireland is part of the digital vision for the province.

A big hub.

An end to provincial thinking

Matt Johnston — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:07:24 +0000

Simple Question: Where did HBO shoot A Game of Thrones?

The simplest answer is “Belfast”, but that’s not entirely accurate. Only a percentage of the shots were taken in Belfast and the rest were shot in Saintfield, Audley’s Castle, Banbridge, Parkgate, Downhill Beach, Magarahorn Quarry and the list continues.

I’m asking that we end the tendency for provincial thinking in Northern Ireland. I’ve seen this most recently with the number of regions (meaning: towns, counties) proposing their new strategies for the incumbent digital knowledge economy and with precious little thought about the bigger picture.

I have always championed the whole of Northern Ireland. I’ve been to every corner of the province and spoken to anyone who had a notion about the future economy and what I’m asking is an end to individual notions of regional advantage. This isn’t about Belfast any more than it is about Derry or Newry or Strabane. This is all about Northern Ireland.

We should be inclusive rather than exclusive. There is no part of Northern Ireland that is not a commuter region for any other part of Northern Ireland. You can get almost anywhere in the province within 90 minutes and you’re seldom more than 50 miles from the coast. We’re such a small region that it doesn’t make sense to promote our differences and borders.

So I’m asking of you, and more importantly the public sector and ALBs/NGOs:

When talking about the new and shiny, refer to Northern Ireland rather than individual towns unless there is a very specific reason to be exclusive.
Standardise the programmes and developments across the region. If something is happening in Derry, then it should be happening in Newry and Strabane (and Enniskillen and Dungiven).
For equality of opportunity, centralise activities in central urban areas. This reduces the chance that any development is going to be on the “wrong side” of the city for a specific community.

And my justification for the above?

Have a look at the geographical distribution of digital businesses in Northern Ireland. There’s a big number beside Belfast but the much more interesting statistic is the number of areas which only have 1-2 businesses resident. They’re spread all over Northern Ireland.